Report: 40 House Republicans ready to vote against Boehner for Speaker next year?

posted at 2:41 pm on March 24, 2014 by Allahpundit

We’ve been told before that a tea-party revolt was brewing, only to see it fall flat, so maybe this is idle saber-rattling on a slow news day.

Riddle me this, though. If this is just a bluff, what’s the angle? What do the anti-Boehner forces gain by warning this guy through the media that he has nothing to lose by screwing the caucus every which way before the midterms? If he’s a dead man walking, what’s keeping him from bringing amnesty to the floor and letting 20 RINOs pass it with Pelosi’s help?

“My sense at the present time that the Speaker doesn’t have the support of the conference,” says South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan about John Boehner. Another member of the House privately estimates that 40 Republican lawmakers would vote against Boehner on the floor and says “I’ve seen a running total.”

“Believe me, they’re not going to go through the national embarrassment — all of the cameras are on the floor — they’re not going to go through that. A leader will emerge before that happens,” the source adds…

Majority Leader Eric Cantor has turned up the intensity of his outreach to members in preparation for the possibility Boehner retires but is facing new questions from the right about his conservative bona fides…

“I could go through chapter and verse on multiple times when we ended up having some crappy vote on the floor and it was all Cantor’s idea,” the member who estimated 40 lawmakers would vote against Boehner says. “Almost every time we’ve violated the Hastert rule, it’s been something that Cantor was pushing. I think he’s more scary than Boehner.”

Duncan insists “there are conversations being had.” If this were a bluff, designed to goose tea partiers into turning out in even heavier numbers this fall with the prospect of turning the House redder and installing a more conservative Speaker, then the whisperers should be claiming that they don’t have the votes yet, right? That’s why they need righties to go to the polls; only by electing another dozen or so tea partiers, the theory would go, could they be assured of beating Boehner next January. Instead, they’re saying they … already have the numbers. (Forty votes would be more than enough to prevent a House majority on Boehner’s behalf, unless a few dozen centrist Republicans defeated Democrats this fall.) So there’s no extra incentive to turn out if you’re a Boehner-hater. On the contrary, if you’re a centrist Republican who thinks the House caucus needs a moderating hand on the wheel, this is an incentive to stay home or vote Democratic. And if you’re Boehner, it’s an incentive to pass agenda items this year, like immigration reform, that you fear might otherwise alienate the tea party. Why not, if you’re being pushed towards the exit anyway?

Could be this is a ghost-of-Christmas-future thing, where tea partiers warn him of what might happen if he proceeds with things like amnesty, but in that case you’d expect them to make their demands explicit. Nope. There’s nothing in Jonathan Strong’s piece about immigration specifically. Which leaves us with one obvious possibility: Maybe, despite all the rumors about Boehner considering retirement, he’s now leaning towards staying on another two years. That would make sense, given the growing odds that the GOP will retake the Senate. Boehner’s always wanted to strike a grand bargain with Obama on deficit reduction; maybe he reasons that having control of both chambers is the party’s last best chance to pressure O into a deal. And House tea partiers, realizing that he’s now inclined to stay, have decided they need to rattle the saber to make him change his mind. Retire — or be ousted in humiliating fashion. But if Boehner goes and Cantor is unacceptable, who’s next?

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embattled Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) berated a group of local activists who oppose amnesty legislation, suggesting they were racist and saying they didn’t have “any dam@ facts.”

“You’re telling me what people have told you? You don’t have any dam@ facts!” Ellmers exploded at one of the activists when he said that employers – who often claim a labor shortage to argue for amnesty – frequently don’t post job openings in that region.

“Facts – numbers. Facts – documents,” Ellmers lectured, her voice dripping with disdain. She went on to attribute the activist’s views to “resentment…because of a personal issue that you experienced,” later referring to a local company that had laid off workers. “I know where your hatred and vitriol is coming from,” she added.

Tymoshenko, after asked, rhetorically, by her counterparty, “what should we do now with the 8 million Russians that stayed in Ukraine. They are outcasts”… to which she replies: “They must be killed with nuclear weapons.”

Because just like that Putin has his provocation carte blanche, as the second something, anything happens to any ethnic Russian in east Ukraine, Putin can point to precisely this conversation as proof of how Ukraine’s “government” feels toward the ethnic minorities in the east, and why “they deserve to be protected” the Russian bearhug. Which has been precisely Putin’s plan all along.

Tymoshenko admitted the validity of the recording except for the 8 million dead Russians.

This may be an idiot running off at the mouth, or it may be a conversation slightly altered by the Russians which gives them the pretext for an invasion.

Report: 40 House Republicans ready to vote against Boehner for Speaker next year?

The Weeping Boner shold have been unceremoniously thrown out of the Weepership back in March 2011, when it was already clear that he was a loser, a fialure, a back-stabber and a crybaby Barky helper. This is far too little, far too late. The game’s already over … and much of it was thrown by the Weeping Boner during his horrible tenure in the Weepership all these years.

Boner should have already been thrown out of the Weepership, ejected from the House, deported from America and blasted into deep space. At this point, I don’t care what happens next year because it doesn’t matter. The American Socialist Superstate is what we are now subjects of and that is that.

I don’t like when these guys play games through the media. It’s very middle school. I have to think that if he bring up amnesty and it wins, I wouldn’t want to be a Republican in general and an Establishment type in particular.

We have a low-information president, who has appointed a low-information cabinet, including the low-information secretary of health and human services who is applying a low-information health care law (one of many such laws) behind the big power of a low-morality Internal Revenue Service. The result of all of this low information in power is a low-liberty nation.

So when Matt Drudge – fully complying with the inane and unworkable law as it applies to his 2014 taxes – calls them out on it, they publicly and bumptiously step in their own pile of ordure. These liberals, who claim that they alone can run the auto industry, the banking industry, and all of health care – haven’t the foggiest notion how one of the most basic tenets of tax law works. This particular part of a disastrous health care law is exhibit A for what happens when those who have never signed the front of a business check in their lives have power over those who have. And power over everybody else, too.

Who the hell would want Boehner to stay on? He’s a whiny crybaby. He’s accomplished nothing as House Speaker on the GOP’s behalf. He frequently sends legislation to the floor to be passed by a majority of Dems and handful of Republicans. And he seems to have no vision whatsoever for his party’s agenda and the country at large. Say what you will about Newt on a personal level, but when it came to his politics, you knew where the guy stood.

Riddle me this, though. If this is just a bluff, what’s the angle? What do the anti-Boehner forces gain by warning this guy through the media that he has nothing to lose by screwing the caucus every which way before the midterms?

First, keep in mind you could be over thinking this. People like to feel smart and politically savvy. If everyone was playing even 2D political chess, then no one would ever blab about this stuff without some calculated purpose, but in reality, a lot of people like to show off how politically savvy and in-the-loop they think they are. Remember, just about every one of these people wants to think of themselves as being a politically powerful and significant individual.

But just for fun, let’s say this really is a deliberate signal of some kind. It does not immediately follow that the intended recipient of the message is Boehner. In fact, I’d say that this is a clue that maybe it’s not:

Majority Leader Eric Cantor has turned up the intensity of his outreach to members in preparation for the possibility Boehner retires but is facing new questions from the right about his conservative bona fides…

If Boehner is already thinking about retiring, then the message may well be directed towards wobbly house republicans – perhaps conservatives want to send the following message:

“No matter what he says, Boehner is not leaving just because he’s tired of the game – if he leaves, it’s because he knows he’ll be kicked out the door if he tries to stay. And if we have the votes to drive out the sitting speaker, then we sure as hell can beat Boehner 2.0.

“So before you decide to cast your lot with the next squishy McRINO, meditate on the fact that you’ll be siding with the eventual loser at the cost of antagonizing the eventual winner.”

This is all a smoke screen to give hope to the gullible people who think that the GOP will not betray them. No matter how many times it happens over and over and over again. The Neostatists run the country, and they are in both parties. Washington is one big oligarchy

Who the hell would want Boehner to stay on? He’s a whiny crybaby. He’s accomplished nothing as House Speaker on the GOP’s behalf. He frequently sends legislation to the floor to be passed by a majority of Dems and handful of Republicans. And he seems to have no vision whatsoever for his party’s agenda and the country at large. Say what you will about Newt on a personal level, but when it came to his politics, you knew where the guy stood.

Doughboy on March 24, 2014 at 3:20 PM

I’m not as up on the House rules as maybe I should be. But is there any bar, statutory or otherwise, to members electing Newt Gingrich as speaker?

This is all a smoke screen to give hope to the gullible people who think that the GOP will not betray them. No matter how many times it happens over and over and over again. The Neostatists run the country, and they are in both parties. Washington is one big oligarchy

Y*E*S! It is about time that Washington Establishment, Obama but-kissing, self-serving RINO was booted out of his Speaker position, and I hope a TRUE Conservative wins in his Primary so he never goes back to Washington again…unless it is to go on the WH Tour. oh wait, Obama cancelled those.